to think University students without particular needs do not need an en-suite shower room?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

I'm so surprised that University Halls of Residence now offer this as an option to more or less all their students. What the hell? How many of you are indulging your offspring with this poncery and why? (exceptional needs aside of course).

When I went to Uni in the dark ages of the 1980s no one had an ensuite. Almost no one had a wash basin either. Is it a money making exercise?

New build houses are the same. Not every bedroom needs separate washing/bathing facilities. The first world's gone mad!

Not particularly singling out this post, but there is a general MN thing of assuming that how things were at your uni, or your DC's uni, is how it is everywhere. DD had a shared bathroom in uni-owned house for first year, no cleaner in sight. (She couldn't wait to pay extra for an en suite. Her choice how to budget!)

and then they bring coffee pod machines and nutribullets etc etc 😂

Why is this funny?? Young adults get moaned at if they buy a coffee out and now they get moaned at for making a coffee at home. And is there a rule that says students must live in baked beans alone and can’t make a smoothie? Strange outlook.

It’s quite normal and as someone said modern halls are built with en-suites. My son had one last year when on-site, he selected 6 options, some with en-suite, some without and was given an en-suite room. This year he’s at a private halls of residence off site and has an en-suite as all of the rooms there do. Gym on site, table tennis tables and big communal areas aswell as kitchen in each set of flats. Times have moved on since you were at Uni clearly

😂

Just dropped my son off at Uni where his rent is £170 pw

Both my sons had en suites at their unis and the rent was £157 & £168 pw

we had one bathroom on my hall floor (12 students) that contained two showers with just curtains, no cubicles and two toilet cubicles. There were locks in the two loos but the bathroom itself could not be locked.

In our halls (late 90s) there were some en suite options but the bathrooms for mine were mixed!!!

The main issue with mixed sex toilets and showers is that 18 year old boys are not always very clean and some pretty much trash the place. I appreciate that not all girls are hygeinic either but I think there is more chance they will be relatively clean.

It's the same with clothes. I mean, why do kids these days need several items of clothing? What was wrong with wearing potato sacks? The world's gone mad I tell thee.

I remember being in halls where we had one toilet between 10 of us - it was grim. Mainly boys pissed all over the seat and floor. Periods were a bloody nightmare getting up and having a flood and then trying to get to the toilet to change your tampon and pad. Vomit was regular. I can’t imagine the grim of sharing Covid with a block like that. Bathrooms are £500 tops at student level to put in - rent has gone up from £300 a term at my old hall to £3000 and yet the rooms haven’t changed at all. Any money for the rent in that hall is pure profit - the building were paid off long ago - the least they can do is give them a toilet. As a girl wondering down the corridor in my nightie on the winter at 2 am to change my pad or have a wee - with rowdy drunk students everywhere - potential for assault etc - really it seems very inhumane now

If you've got the money I don't see the issue. Sharing 1 toilet and 1 shower, both in the same room, with 5 other people isn't fun. Especially if some of them are inconsiderate twats who have sex and throw up in the shower. And the smell of other peoples poo when you're trying to get showered and brush your teeth is grim.

I started uni 20 years ago and we had en-suites in our halls. Does that make it modern? It made everything a lot more comfortable and I was very glad to have my own toilet and shower in a mixed sex flat!

Ours aren't quite at that age yet but I'd be happier knowing they had a private bathroom. It's good that halls are built that way now.

Yabu. Sharing toilets and showers is grim. I wouldn't do it.

My old uni was building en-suite halls in the late 90s, are you really only now aware of this..?

A lot of student accommodation is built using modular units, which are basically pre-fitted glorified shipping containers stacked in a frame and then covered in cladding.

It’s a much more cost effective method of construction and means rooms can be fitted with bathrooms making them a) more appealing to tenants b) easier to rent during the holidays

DS’s halls didn’t have a choice. They were built 5 years ago, choice was ensuite and shared kitchen, or en suite studio with own kitchen. Halls also have a gym

Surely there is less cleaning as the students do it themselves. Our cleaners never cleaned the shared bathrooms let alone cleaning the private spaces.

But I can completely understand how en suites are safer for women. And I would be happy to pay for that.

I wouldn't know. We didn't have clocks back then.

You had a tap?! Pure luxury. We had to squeeze out a few tears to wash in 😂

my daughter has her own bathroom now and she's 6 😂

What, without the particular needs of …. being a basic human? They’re going to uni, not joining the bloody army!

😂😂😂😂 that’s so funny!

I think the issue is the extra cost.

Of course an en-suite is nice, but the question is whether it is worth the extra cost, given students are running up bigger and bigger debts or costing their parents more and more.

The difference in price for en-suite can be substantial. Likewise, the cost for a 3/4 size bed instead of single is staggering and would pay for the bed multiple times over. So is it worth paying the extra thousand or so per year for it…that really is the question in my mind?

Persoanlly, I’d be starting with a budget and working from that. DC can decide if they want to spend what’s available on bigger beds and en-suites or have more money for food, going out or possibly saving. I wouldn’t be starting from the price if whatever accommodation they fancy and then giving them the same amount of spending money regardless.

Many many 2nd and 3rd years say they over-rated en-suites and realised this once they arrived. What happens is that 17/18 year olds who’ve never lived with those not in their families have an unreasonable fear of sharing bathrooms and pooing etc. sometimes their parents have a horror about shared facilities too. Speak to a 21 year old who has done a couple of years in uni and in shared houses and you’ll get a different view and the focus instead becomes on whether it’s worth the price.

Unis certainly build them so they can use them for conferences in holidays and especially so they can charge students more and those rooms deliver more profit.

Start from looking at what the extra cost per year is for it and what % is that adding to accommodation costs. And then consider if it’s worth that price.

Many people share bathrooms at home and those in boarding schools share bathrooms and know it’s fine. I actually think those who are most desperate to avoid shared bathrooms are those who’s parents didn’t go to uni and share bathrooms or live in shared houses in early adulthood, and those who’ve had less experiences as teens such as DofE, scouting, other residentials where shared facilities and abit of roughing it are the norm and therefore no longer scary.

Haha, I was apart of the share a bathroom generation too. Sounds like a nice luxury now!

I love threads that celebrate no frills back to basics salt of the earth workaday activities. Like, for eg, going to University.